NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover has yet again been scouring the Red Planet for traces of life, and this time it’s captured a rodent-shaped ‘creature’ among dusty orange rocks, space buffs claim.

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The recently reported photo (captured Sept 2012), was taken at the sandy ‘Rocknest’ site on the surface of Aeolis Palus, between Peace Vallis and Aeolis Mons. Here NASA was collecting sand samples to test for basaltic materials.

The picture from the testing site was posted on the UFO Sightings Daily website, the website’s creator Scott C Waring claims a squirrel-like creature can be seen in the image. “Note its lighter coloured upper and lower eyelids, its nose and cheek areas, its ear, its front leg and stomach. Looks similar to a squirrel camouflaged in the stones and sand by its colours,” he explained.

Another man in Japan is convinced the shape in the image is a ferret. The shape is “familiar to a ferret,” explained the Japanese blogger on yukawanet.com. You can make out the “head, front legs and tail,” he continued.

Although the shape in the image is most likely just a rock, NASA revealed that the Curiosity rover had found evidence that suggested ancient Mars could have supported living microbes.

Mars Science Laboratory project scientist John Grotzinger from the California Institute of Technology explained: “We have characterised a very ancient, but strangely new ‘gray Mars’, where conditions once were favourable for life,

“Curiosity is on a mission of discovery and exploration, and as a team we feel there are many more exciting discoveries ahead of us in the months and years to come.”

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